Happy Family

by Tracy Barone

  “But it’s not,” he says, cutting her off. “It’s not you. You cling to the almighty chemo because anything that’s not debilitating and invasive doesn’t seem like fighting, and God knows, you love a fight! Get up, Michael, put your dukes up and fight; not how you do it, but how I do it.” He takes a beat to let his anger dissipate. “And here I was, thinking you had an open mind.”

  “It’s a big decision,” she says, straightening her files and closing her laptop. “I thought we’d talk it through.”

  “We just did.” He sighs. “You’ve made your point. I’ve looked at all the pamphlets you leave around like bread crumbs. And I appreciate the effort. Do you hear that? I appreciate what you’ve been doing for me. You may be right. You may be wrong. But this is what I’m doing.”

  Cheri feels defeat closing in. “You haven’t told them everything, have you? Jane, Bertrand, the rest of your crew. They’re not prepared for how bad it could be, are they?”

  “Bertrand knows. There’s no need to concern anyone else with the details.”

  “On top of everything else he does, Bertrand’s now in charge of helping you remember to take hundreds of supplements? Bertrand’s going to give you the coffee enemas every few hours?” When Cheri stops to think about it, Bertrand probably would. Shouldn’t this be Cheri’s job? Whatever image she conjures up, it’s all distressing.

  “Jesus, stop fucking worrying, Cheri. I can handle most of the instructions myself. It’s not like you to be so—”

  “So what?”

  “Forget it.”

  “Finish the sentence, Michael. It’s not like me to be so what? Caring? Nice?”

  “Fearful.” The word sits between them like a fly ball they both called for and both missed.

  “Someone has to be the voice of reason,” she says quietly, angrily. “Nobody else is, so I guess I’m it.”

  “You know everyone showed up for me today; no questions, no second-guessing. That felt really good, and feeling good is what’s best for me. I can only tell you this is what I need so many times.”

  Cheri’s been the one chopping wood and carrying water, slogging through the minutiae of treatment options, but his crew shows up and suddenly they’re the only ones supporting him? There’s no way for her to win. She takes a deep breath.

  “Taya will have some ideas about psychics,” she says, “I’ll call her.”

  “I already reached out to her; she sent me an e-mail.”

  Since when did Michael have that kind of a relationship with Taya? “So you don’t need me for anything,” she says, realizing how deeply the words cut her only as she says them aloud.

  “What’s that supposed to mean? Bertrand’s mortgaged his fucking house so we can start shooting while he gets the investors together, and you’re worried about being needed?”

  “It came out wrong,” Cheri mutters.

  “What exactly is your fantasy? You and me in that funky little pensione we stayed at in St. Germaine with the duck cassoulet I can’t eat anymore and you never had the palate to appreciate? You pushing me around in a wheelchair, wiping my ass when I’m too weak from the chemo to get up from the toilet? Good times. I’m not doing chemo or a clinical trial just so you can tell yourself that you did everything possible.”

  “It’s called having hope,” she says bitterly.

  Michael’s eye twitches and he rubs his face with his hand. “All we have is our ability to get up each morning and choose how we want to live, what we want to experience—good or bad. Without that we’re nothing.” Michael walks over and rummages in the refrigerator. “It’s a fucking dairy in here, three cartons of milk, all expired.”

  “Bertrand didn’t have to mortgage his house,” Cheri says quietly. “We can pay him back.”

  “With Sol’s money? Don’t even go there.”

  “It’s my money now.”

  “So you want to use his money—that you wouldn’t take for yourself—as what? Absolution? For Sol or for you? Because I’m now a ‘good cause’?”

  “That’s not fair,” she says, “that is not fair and you know it.”

  Michael turns away. They've danced around the issue of her trust fund so many times it’s exhausting and his voice shows it. “Okay,” he says. “Let’s not get into the money conversation. Bertrand knows what he’s doing. We’ll have no trouble rounding up investors. It’s fine.”

  “Here.” Cheri walks over to the fridge, reaches in, and hands him the almond milk. “Believe it or not, I’m trying to help. You don’t make it easy.”

  “None of this is easy.” Michael takes his tea and almond milk out to his office.

  “For the record, it was duck rillettes,” she calls after him, “and I loved them.” The open fridge hums. She checks the dates on the milk—only one is expired. Should she offer to go with Michael on the road? She’s never done that; she had her work and he had his. That’s not an issue at the moment, but this Last Stand casts a long shadow. What would she be? Roadie, groupie, handmaiden, wife? As much as she wants to help, Michael would resist it coming from her. She dumps the spoiled milk down the sink and, in an act of defiance, throws the carton in the garbage instead of the recycle bin.

  On the Road Again

  In the next days, Michael is a whirlwind of focused activity, energized by his palm-wearing loyalists. Cheri sits in her den/office and listens to the phone ringing and ringing, all on Michael’s lines. She lights a cigarette, takes a deep drag, and doesn’t bother to get up and blow the smoke out the window. Almost halfway into the quarter she won’t be teaching, she’s finally unpacked her boxes and made the den a working office. No photocopies have arrived from London, and she’s yet to find a book thesis that’s compelling enough to make her want to sit down and write. It’s pathetic that all that’s on her desk is a growing pile of papers that’s exclusively on the Richardses’ complaint.

  She’d been so consumed with Michael’s diagnosis that, for a brief moment, she’s almost forgotten her righteous indignation over the review board’s questions. They’ve spoken to her students about the in-class discussion the day Richards claimed she tried to kick him out because he was a Catholic. They asked, with what she thought was moral superiority, if it was her practice to query students about their experiences with prostitutes. Did they read her book? Contemporizing ancient subject matter was what she was known for and hers was among the most popular classes in the department. And what did any of this have to do with Richards’s claim of religious bias? They asked to see her notes from the past five years, presumably to verify she’d covered this subject before. She’d given them everything. Meanwhile they’d given her no information on how quickly they intended to wrap up their investigation or what their verdict was likely to be. She hadn’t told anyone at the university about Michael’s diagnosis, although she soon learned that “dealing with family matters” conveniently shut down any well-intentioned, or not-so-well-intentioned, questions from her colleagues about how she’d filled her summer or what was occupying her time now. It was vague enough to suit Cheri, yet it didn’t invite further questions. Now that she stops to think about it, what if people think she and Michael are getting a divorce; wouldn’t that be ironic?

  Cheri tries to rationalize: She’s not in exile, she’s in research mode. She should get back to the Ugaritic texts instead of staring out the window at the comings and goings of the Palmist base camp. If productivity had a scent, it would be wafting out of there. It pierces her tar haze. Damn Jane, that organizational freak of nature has given Cheri no opening to do even the smallest task, like ordering lunch. (Twin Anchors, anyone? Best ribs in Chicago.) And now there’s also a young intern with the mile-high legs and lush red ponytail ready to meet Michael’s every need.

  Twenty minutes later, Cheri gets out of her car, bobbling two trays of Starbucks. She opens the door to Michael’s office with her foot. “Jeez, Cheri, think you got enough? Let me help,” Michael says, taking a tray.

  “I also got you some matcha tea f
rom the health store, it’s this cup.” She points with her chin then realizes Michael is alone. “Where is everyone?”

  “They’ll be back in a bit.”

  The room has been transformed with a galaxy of signs, photographs, and old posters of turbaned swamis, fortune-tellers, mystics, a map of the United States with various routes red-pegged like a Battleship game, a bulletin board spattered with images of tarot, multicolored symbols, and runes. Michael is the center of his universe, standing in his low-slung jeans, his hands in his pockets. Scrub-bearded, he is a man in charge. This is the man she’d once found irresistible, the man who knew things she didn’t, the cynical rascal who charmed her while she was walking out on his film and made her want to fuck him right then and there. “I have to kiss you,” she says, taking his face in her hands. If he resists, it’s only for a moment. He’s aroused by her sudden hunger; she can feel him pressing into her with a small moan.

  “What are you doing? They’re on their way back.” Michael’s got a lopsided smile. They scrabble to find footing, release the appropriate fastenings so that they’re both depantsed, his hand under her blouse. “Watch the map,” he says. Fuck the map. She’s pulling him to the floor and maneuvers herself on top of him the way he likes, with his hands on her hips. She curls her chest toward his and he looks her in the eye. “Oh, baby.”

  A few thrusts and it’s over.

  “It’s been a while,” he says. He holds her and she can feel his body vibrating like a washing machine that’s just been turned off. After a minute, he taps her to roll off him. They lie next to each other on the floor and she reaches for his hand, squeezes it. Michael breathes heavily. He’s clammy.

  “I can’t let you go. It’s too risky. It just is. Michael, please reconsider.”

  Michael pulls himself up and puts on his jeans, hands Cheri hers. “We’ve been over this. Please. Respect what I’m doing here.”

  Okay. Cheri nods. Okay. “I’d come with you,” she says. “If you needed—or wanted—me to, I’d be there.”

  “Sorry, am I interrupting?” It’s Bertrand, peering in the door. “I can come back.”

  “Come on in. Cheri got coffee, you might want to nuke it.”

  “Yours is cappuccino,” Cheri says, discreetly buttoning her blouse.

  “Thanks, Cheri,” he says, holding up his cup to her. “Are you sure you weren’t in the middle of something?”

  “No, I’m ready, what have you got?” Michael sits at his desk and starts tapping his computer’s keyboard. Bertrand gives Cheri a kindly look and starts unpacking his laptop and thick production notebook. Cheri feels like maybe she should leave. “Hey, you two didn’t happen to talk about the car, did you?” Bertrand asks.

  “Car, what car?” Cheri says.

  “We need a car for the film, and Michael mentioned your mother has a vintage Caddy from the sixties?”

  “I keep forgetting to ask you about it,” Michael says. “Do you know what year it is?”

  “You’re talking about Cici’s old car in Montclair? She’s had it ever since I can remember, I don’t know what year.”

  “I know it’s early sixties and it’s a classic convertible, at least I remember it that way, with the fins and whitewall tires?” Michael is on his computer, Googling away.

  “I bet it’s an Eldorado.” Bertrand bends over to look at Michael’s screen. “Is this it?” He beckons Cheri to look.

  “Yeah, I think that’s it. I’m surprised you remember it, Michael.”

  “It’s in those photographs she has up on that one wall at Eighty-first Street, you know, of you as a kid? I pay more attention than you think. Knowing your mother, it’s barely been driven.”

  “It’s been covered in the garage for decades. It probably won’t even start. If you want a cool old convertible, why not go with a Tiger or a Vette?”

  “Too predictable,” Bertrand says, smoothing his beard thoughtfully.

  “I like the feel of the Caddy, it’s retro and American from when American cars meant something,” Michael adds.

  “Out of all the cars you could get, you want my mother’s car?”

  “It’s the right creative choice for the film, Cheri,” Michael says. “And we don’t exactly have unlimited time or money right now.” Cheri looks at Bertrand and remembers he’s already taken out a second mortgage to accommodate Michael’s dream. He’s being diplomatic but she can tell he’s in favor as well.

  “This is Cici we’re talking about; she’ll ask a million questions. She doesn’t know anything about your diagnosis. Are you sure you want to open that can of worms?”

  “She won’t even notice it’s gone. When was the last time she was in Montclair?”

  “That’s not the point,” Cheri says.

  “You asked what I needed from you,” Michael says.

  Cheri was snared. “Of course,” she says.

  The moment Cheri sees the stately Colonial rising up at the end of the long gravel driveway on Upper Mountain Drive she feels like she’s ten years old. She hasn’t been back here since after Sol’s funeral. It’s an elegant house, gracious in its ripening age, with its wraparound porch and rows of Italian cypress trees standing sentinel. The earth smells rich with fall rot; the oak trees have mostly flamed but still burst with yellow in places. Only her mother’s beloved lilac bushes have missed the party and are faded brown. Birds. Amazing how she can hear the trills and the whistles in suburbia; it all gets lost in the city. Without even stepping inside, Cheri can picture the layers of Cici’s decor: the earth tones, the gilt, the overstuffed armchairs, the antiques from various eras that smell of beeswax and lemon. Even before all of the additions, the house felt too big for just three people, maybe more so because they were always teams of two. Okay, Cheri thinks, let’s just get this done quickly. Michael’s traveling road show waits on the street below; his camera truck and van are parked and ready to roll as soon as they’ve got the Caddy.

  Cheri joins Michael in the garage, watching as a white-coated mechanic who specializes in vintage cars revs up the Caddy’s engine. Naturally, Jane managed to find an expert within a thirty-mile radius of their target. Michael walks around, looking it over, and then nods at her and grins. She has to admit it looks cherry.

  “For a car that hasn’t been driven in a decade, it’s in pristine condition,” the mechanic says. “She’s all tuned up and ready.”

  Michael and Cheri linger awkwardly next to the Cadillac. Michael puts his hands on her shoulders. Sometimes she forgets just how tall he is.

  “I’m nervous about this,” she says.

  “We’ll take good care of it. Cici will never know.”

  “I wasn’t talking about the car.”

  “I know,” he says, giving her shoulders a squeeze. “I’ll be okay.” She wants to hold on to this moment, say, Stop, go back. Don’t move forward because looming there is an even greater good-bye.

  “Okay,” she says.

  “This house must have been quite the place to grow up in,” says the red-ponytailed intern trailing behind Bertrand into the garage. “It’s too bad we don’t have time to see inside…” Cheri and Michael shake their heads simultaneously.

  “Thanks, Cheri,” Bertrand says, squeezing her protectively. “I’ll keep my eye on him,” he whispers, then he turns back to Michael. “You ready, O Captain, my captain?”

  “I feel great,” Michael says, “and this is going to be one hell of a trip.” He turns to Cheri; his lips graze hers and they hug. She holds on to him for longer than both of them know is good. He pats her back, saying, “I gotta go now.”

  Cheri’s hand is raised in a brief wave as the Cadillac wends its way down the long driveway then disappears into the oak trees and the skyline. She is filled with a deep longing, the profound sense of missing something she’s never really had. It’s young and primitive, this fantasy of family; the idea that someone is there for you no matter what. She looks down at the shape of the Cadillac superimposed on the dusty garage floor, like the
chalk outline of a dead body. She should get going, but where to? Back to the airport and the specter of her empty house, a career endangered by the word prostitution? Or should she go inside this empty house, where memories she’d sought to avoid thrive and whisper to her through dusty curtains, slipcovered furniture, and shuttered windows?

  The slanted sunlight coming through the small window makes the dark inside the garage seem darker, and Cheri finds herself feeling along the wall for the light switch. Somewhere in here there’s a box with her junior rifle trophies and medals. Gusmanov once asked if he could take a trophy to put on his mantel, and she’d said, “Of course.” When she was heading to college he’d helped her pack it all up, along with her first pistol, a Colt 911, and together they placed the box with the other flotsam and jetsam of her childhood way back on a high shelf here in the garage. She peers up at the stacks of boxes; she can barely make out Cookie’s misspelled labels: Baking staff, Cheri’s colledge. The shadows up there are nothing, she realizes, compared to what lurks in her mind. She decides to get a ladder and a flashlight and find whatever it is she’s supposed to find.

  Cherry Bomb

  Nobody asked Cheri Matzner to the Montclair High School prom and her only truly close friend was Taya Resnick, the socialite daughter of a Wall Street tycoon. It didn’t matter to Taya that Cheri didn’t look or act like any of her other rich-kid friends. As different as the two girls were, they bonded over absentee fathers, the belief that Dostoyevsky was very fucking funny, chain-smoking, and their burning need to get the hell out of Montclair. They were coconspirators who never got caught.

  By twelfth grade, Cheri was a suburban subversive with a nose ring, multiple piercings, ripped clothing, and dyed blue hair she’d buzzed on one side with her father’s electric razor. She wore her difference as armor against the cliques, the me-too forces that tugged on her adolescent impulse to find safety in numbers. She was in enough AP classes to qualify as a nerd and had the basketball skills to be a jock. But while Cheri had a foot in every camp, she didn’t fit into any one category. Better put, no category could accommodate all of her conflicting parts.